The Demons in Porcelain Glass
by Glow Star Stickers
Summary: There are demons in porcelain figurines. They once feasted on the blood and spirits of the living, but they have been locked away in their cages for decades of years and years. That is, until they fall into the hands of a group of unknowing and unsuspecting people who the world (or the internet) knows as The Creatures.


Introduction Part I

The air was infused with expired cinnamon dust, dried apple, and ground cigarette ash. A man, suspended in between the Earth and space, was perched on a chair standing on two legs. He was in a lucid like state, chest rising and falling in the slow and steady way that would not tip or tilt the balance he had in his place. Two feet were up on the counter and his head was bent forward in such an angle that it looked painful, but wasn't. The stiffness of the place muffled sound and the damp wood walls soaked in all the sounds of nature outside. And outside was a deep evergreen wood with birds swinging high in the heads of pines. The trunks hummed a lowly song and it echoed through their roots and into the ground. Touching the bark would bring a slight vibration in the fingertips that would barely be felt or noticed.

Peace reigned and the world absorbed all noise to create a harmonious symphony of each animal, plant, and insect. All this would cause the forest here to hum through their branches. Not even the engine of the up and coming car could disrupt the euphony. Rocks were shot out into the forest by the worn tires of the red truck. Parts of the paint were missing from the automobile's frame. There, in these places, the metal was rusted with a coppery semblance.

The windows of the car were open wide, including the back window which only had sharp fragments of glass left along the sides of the window frame. The sound of a heavy pounding on a drum set and the riffing of an electric guitar was filtering out into the forest. The driver, a man with auburn brown hair and a rough looking beard, tapped his hand against the outside of the driver door's window and started to sing along with the music as the indie rocker on the radio started singing out loud in a raspy voice.

He paused to take a breath and slowed the speed of the truck as he saw a lowly dark wood building with green vines climbing up and over the slanting roof. The man turned off the radio, now feeling the forest engulfing the tightly wound sound the small speakers threw carelessly out into the cold. Replacing the pounding of drums, the lackadaisical and capricious strumming of the guitar, and the downy rasp voice of the singer was the hum of the trees, the joyous singing of the birds, and the quiet though unsettled breathing of the man. The engine's growling was devoured by the forest when the man took his keys from the ignition. He stepped out of his car to enter the building encased in the emerald overgrowth.

The steps of flat fungus plants went up the sides of the building in certain dark areas he noticed the closer he got. The place seemed to be an old store full of the most curious oddities upon further examination of the green fringed windows and rotting wood sign hanging insecurely over the entrance. He wandered inside, glancing up to see a nonexistent bell that the door was supposed to hit and signal the owner. The man felt the suspension and the cold of the forest dissipate once he passed through the threshold between outside and in. Now, in here, it was a still, sodden humidity that slumbered in the air with its back curving forward in a slumped position.

He strode through the store seemingly in one fluid motion. There, in possibly the darkest corner of the room, was a large box with intricate engraved patterns at each corner of the box. It was hidden deliberately behind several other objects, but he hadn't missed it. Somehow, he had been drawn to it, as if the object had its very own gravitational field and had pulled him into orbit. A fine film of dust covered every side of it. The man pulled it out from its hiding place and brushed away the gray filth.

"What're you doing?" The man was startled by the loud, disruptive voice of the shop owner which broke through the ominous silence in the place. "I'm sorry, sir, Mister, uh, sir." The man blubbered out nervously, now facing the large and burly owner. He wore a dark red plaid shirt and a pair of creased, sun bleached jeans much too small for his protruding pot belly. The shop owner's nostrils flared twice as a mad bull's would before it charged. He let out a gruff breath through his nose on the third time and the heat of his breath blew uncomfortably through the other man's hair.

"Leave, there is nothing here for you." The owner's voice was much like the rumbling thunder of a storm. It shook the other to his very core, sending a dithering shudder down his back as he decidedly swallowed the saliva that had collected in his mouth. But he didn't move.

"Get out boy!" The owner belted, seizing the man's shirt collar and tossed him towards the door.

"Now just you wait a minute!" The young man advanced back on the large man upon seeing him begin to move the box back into its shadow veiled indentation. The owner turned around with his large body hiding the box behind him.

"You have no reason for being here. You probably got lost, well there's a town twenty miles north of here. Now get out or I'll call the authorities!" The owner threatened with his booming voice sounding against the walls that strained to absorb the sound into its pores.

"I'm not lost! I'm here to purchase something!" He reached around the shop owner and slammed his hand down on the wooden box. He could feel the smooth wax polishing underneath the grime covering it. The shop owner moved away, eyes intently staring down into the other man's. His pupils tried to sink into his but the glazed iron walls he had set up over them stopped simply the attempt at doing so and the owner had to look away.

"You do not want this." The owner feigned the slightest sound of friendliness.

"Yes I do." His counterpart held each word at such an emphasis that it broke the sentence into three different ones. The shop owner lofted his heavy frame back to his place behind the counter, yielding to the shorter stranger. The man hovered over the box, his iron walls disclosed and eyes greatly intrigued and alive with excitement while they gazed over every sharp and smooth edge.

"More beautiful than a diamond, greater than any jewel." It was a singing and poetic way that he spoke from then on when he let his sights fall over the box. He let his fingertips smooth over the sharp corners of the box and further soften the gleam of the flat planes hidden by delicate refuse still enchained to the sides. All his mind could produce in his thoughts was the mystery of what lies inside. It wasn't a solid block for sure, the golden hinges sitting still on the back and lock pleasantly resting on the front (it being centered along the ridge of the base and the top of the box) said just so. He took the box to the counter and placed it carefully down in front of the shop owner. The burly man let his nostrils flare two times just as he had done not even five minutes before as he lazily peered down at the box and let his green irises trail up the other man's torso and all the way to his face.

"Let this be a warning." The owner said, reaching down and showing the man the ornately decorated gold key he had put under the counter for safety. The other went to take it but the owner pulled his hand back. He held it in place, glaring down the other as he looked right back up at him with brows furrowed in a clearly vexed and wrath filled contemplation.

"Only misfortune can ever come from what lies inside this box. And remember that it was you who brought this curse onto yourself. Do you understand?" He asked in all the seriousness his carbon visage could amount to. Irritation was firmly set in the shorter stranger's features and stilted the sharp nod of his head before swiftly making way to snatch the key. The man caught nothing but air for the second time when the owner drew the key back before it could be grasped.

"Do you understand?"

A long and angrily silence stood firm for a moment's passing.

"Yes."


End file.
